Flames of Laughter
by A Forgotten Lover
Summary: Terrible title. When Fred is gone from George's life, he's only a shard of what he was before. Hermione wishes to ignite in him again his smile, and remedy everything that's wrong. Can she, even though things are changing all round her?


A/N: Yay

A/N: Yay! A prompt set. This is my effort at it. Please enjoy!! Only ten chapters, because that is the challenge/prompt style.

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Chapter 1: Twisted

"You are so messed up."

"And don't I know it."

"Well," I said, trying to divert the subject from the unavoidable issue. I hated to broach it, as he would get, understandably, upset. "You like my new cloak?"

"I guess it's ok. Nothing truly special," he said seriously, although he had an amused gleam in his eye.

"You are so cruel, and I would hate you if I could."

"But you don't. And –" he looked to his side, grinning. But when no one was there, his smile vanished, and he dropped the rag he was cleaning the counter with and walked toward the back door. I sighed unhappily and ran after him. He beat me there though, and went inside the room and locked the door. I figured I could just unlock myself, but that would be low of me, and so I waited outside his room.

"You can't keep expecting him to be there to finish your sentences forever. Come on, George, we all miss him –"

"But no one as much as I do!" he said, his normally grinning face angry. He had opened the door just to yell at me, and shut it back with a slam.

"Fine! If you're going to keep living in the past, then do it, but don't drag us all down with you!" He opened the door again, his face streaked with tears.

"Hermione, it was only a month ago. You don't know what its like, alright? All my life, he's been right by my side and then _bam_, one day he's just _gone_. That's hard. So just let me be, Hermione, if you can't stand me grieving," he said, though I could sense a hard dullness in his voice that I hadn't picked up on before. I could feel my face fall, and I reached for my scarf and started to head out, the bell over the door ringing loudly in the closed store.

Outside, it was warm, and everyone was still celebrating His defeat. I smiled faintly at people who were congratulating people on this or that, or were still in some mode of celebration. Many people called out to me to join their festivities, but I declined each one. People were moving on. I could say that everyone was different; that much was true. But everyone was trying to get past those heavy times, and into these new, lighter ones. It was definitely a new feeling, and strange; I would wake up in the mornings wondering what I'd be getting into that day, only to realize that I could just go and squander my time at the library. It was nice, but weird.

Someone handed me yet another scarf; I had been collecting a vast array of memorabilia from celebratory people, scarves (I had 63), hats (28), posters, (14), and miniature war heroes (257). There were more, but they paled in comparison.

I conjured up my shopping list, and noticed my little note I had scribbled earlier on the side. **Go visit Ron**. **Alone.** Its not that I hadn't seen Ron, or Harry, or any of them, it was just that none of us, save Ron and Harry, had actually seen each other separately; there were always other people, or a large group of us.

I apparated in front of his apartment door and knocked, putting my list away. I could hear him scuffling around inside, and when he finally opened the door, he was pulling on a pale blue shirt over his head. Peeping his head out, he cried out in surprise.

"Hermione! I thought maybe it was mum. She's always coming over at all sorts of hours. A real bother, honestly," he said, smiling his silly little smile that could grab any heart. I smile back, and hugged him.

"It's so great to see you, Ron! I've missed you so much, and I needed to talk to you and –"

"Hey! It's Hermione! Don't tell me you haven't missed me now, alright?" I had been walking into his living room to see Harry sitting on the couch. Don't get me wrong now, I was thrilled to see him, it was just that I wasn't expecting him to be here.

"Harry was just visiting. We were talking about how the Cannons might sign me on their roster. It'll be great, and I'll have some real money..." he kept talking, and I pretended to be wholly immersed into what he was saying. Instead, I was looking around his room which had stuff all strewn over it, and a faint sense of fading organization. This is why Molly Weasley must have been coming over for all the time. Unfortunately it didn't seem to be working. Plates everywhere, a sock here, a book with its spine bent (I cringed at the sight), his broomstick, and other silly things that always show up when your house is a mess. I looked over at Harry after answering Ron's question in the affirmative. His messy hair was the same, but his rumpled shirt and dark jeans looked like they had been put on hastily. I wasn't stupid, and felt a little hurt by their not telling me. It's like they just _expected_ me to know; I may be exceptionally bright, but I can't figure out everything right away.

"So anyways, I was thinking that we could take a holiday somewhere, all three of us. That'd be great fun then, wouldn't it?" I could definitely answer that with a yes. A vacation! Although, that's what my life, for the past month now, had been feeling like anyways. And plus, I had George to help. His shop needed up keeping and he needed some workers for his new store. I couldn't just leave.

"Oh, Ron, I would love to, really I would. But I just can't, I have too much to do. You and Harry could go and tell me all about it later. Or, on second thought, not _all_ about it, just, the good parts. But, wait, no, the fun parts. Ah, er, we can talk about that later. We could just go out now, take a stroll down to Diagon Alley. That would be fun. We could see what the new school books are for this year. I haven't been to Flourish and Blotts for a week now, can't wait to see what they just got," I said excitedly as I ushered them out of the room and outside in a flash. They were muttering under their breath good naturedly about being ushered out to a 'Hermione Haunt'. I smiled at them sarcastically, but laughed genuinely. We apparated to a backroom of the Leaky Cauldron and then walked to the wall which opened up to Diagon Alley.

While we window browsed, we chatted lightly about silly things that didn't matter, but were such a relief to talk about instead of what we normally would have. We couldn't talk about anything too heavy considering that there were people all around and they might hear, but mostly it was because you could not carry on a conversation without someone beckoning us over to congratulate us and give us freebies which they would swear we didn't have. I finally remembered why I was here in the first place, and asked Harry if he could give Ron and I a moment and he could go off to some new Quidditch store that just opened recently. I could tell that Ron wanted to go, but what I was about to ask him couldn't wait, and he could just go after we finished.

I took him inside the nearest store we could find, and it happened to be a quiet little café where we could actually order some tea and talk. How nice. In any case, he seemed confused as to why I was talking to him in private.

"I had been meaning to talk to you alone for a while now, Ron. It's about Geo –"

"I know. He's acting all crazy. It doesn't really help him that Angelina –"

"Johnson?"

"Yes. Anyways, it doesn't help at all that she comes by sometimes thinking that Fred's still here. She talks to him like he's Fred, when we all know she was one of the first students at Hogwarts who could tell them apart. She's gone a bit mad after...you know."

"Yeah..." It was really tough, seeing how some people reacted. Fred and Angelina were practically like soul mates. They seemed to have some understanding of each other, and were incredibly compatible, it broke my heart at his funeral; she acted like it was almost hers as well.

But no one was as bad as George. He almost hadn't gone to the funeral. He had been talking mad, shutting himself up in his room, and had stopped joking, and somewhere in that past month, he had captured my heart.

Of course, I couldn't tell him, at least not yet, and I had been devising how to tell Ron that I just couldn't; and plus, we had had seven years to make it work, and in seven years there had only been one kiss. It wasn't happening. And wouldn't _be_ happening anyways, no thanks to my 'no-secrets-attached' friends.

"Well, then I guess there wasn't much to say," I said. In reality there hadn't been much. But then I remembered what my other point was. I gave him a questioning look, looked outside the window, and looked back him pointedly. He looked back at me blankly. Typical Ron.

"You know...before I got here?"

"Um..."

"Think Ron, think," I said, trying to hide a smile. He hadn't changed. I don't think he ever will, actually. He sighed though, and looked up at me apologetically.

"It's not anything," as he said this, and heard the words that were there, just floating so arrogantly, and his eyes widened. "I didn't mean it that way. If I had, then I'd be a right jerk. I mean, that it's not totally serious, but it's not anything small. We're only a little confused and majorly hormonal. I mean, what do you expect after all these years? We can't _still_ be playing wizard's chess," he said, all seriousness. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I wanted to cry mostly because I realized that I didn't love him anymore, that I was just holding out until he did something. And I held out until I had to find out this; I couldn't, and didn't love him anymore. "Sorry, Hermione," he said, breaking in to my thoughts.

"Sorry for what?" I said, suddenly feeling much better than I had in days. No weights bearing down guiltily on my back, it felt good. I even smiled at him. "I better go back to the shop. George is waiting for me. Or at least, I hope he is. In any case I do need to be there to help him out. You are all so dimwitted," I said, my voice light, and rushed. I got up and gave a slightly confused Ron a hug, and told him I'd see them again, soon.

I was practically flying to the shop. Practically would be an excellent word, but in reality I was impatiently walking behind crowds of slow-walking people. I knew that I could just apparate to the shop, but it's always nice to just walk and look at the people and the shop fronts. I wasn't about to be put down by this; soon I'd see George and my day would be alright again. I could just forget about the little fight we had. But when the thought struck me as a gap opened up between the group and I was able to walk through, we had been arguing a lot. It was always just silly things that inexplicably led to Fred. I was sad for him, and thought of exactly what I would say to him so we could remedy this and come to a conclusion.

It was nice to be practical. You could do so many things without having overbearing silly thoughts above you, excepting a few times. This occupied the rest of my thoughts during the walk through the now brisk air, and I walked with a smile on my face. I wasn't even fazed when I remembered that we had so many files to sort out.

I frowned, however, when I saw that the normally crowded, busy and shoving mess of people in front of the store was not there, only a few stragglers walking up to the door, but the shrugging and heading away again. Was he out to lunch? I knew for sure that he had no other duties today; no one to visit, no ulterior tasks, no people to bother. I walked up the door and was shocked. Tears started to form in my eyes, and I blinked furiously to banish them. He couldn't, he _wouldn't_, she needed to find him right away. But where had he gone? She knew why, of course, but not where. And she ran back to Ron, to something stationed that she could grasp onto, even though what she thought of Ron was changing, and everything around her was crumbling to something that she didn't know or understand.

She ran from the doorway with the sign saying: _Closed until further notice_.

A/N: Good? I hope so. Review please!


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